


Before I Leave This World...

by ekoroshia



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: M/M, back at it again with fluff&angst, ndrv3 spoilers once again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 11:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14617053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekoroshia/pseuds/ekoroshia
Summary: Escaping the killing game had been both an ending, and a beginning.





	Before I Leave This World...

**Author's Note:**

> i was scolded for writing this instead of sleeping.
> 
> but when you get a burst of inspiration, it doesn't matter if it's 7am and you haven't slept in over a day dammit. someone's gotta write it down and that someone was me.

It was dark. The total stillness and lack of sound was oppressive, and though he thought his eyes were open, he could see nothing at all. The only sound in such a space was that of his own breathing, and it both entranced and dizzied him.

It was so dark he wasn’t sure which way was up. He felt closed in, like there was a wall surrounding him, but he couldn't for the life of him tell if it was a foot from his face or an inch. Gingerly, Saihara reached out in front of him, raising his hand slowly, tentatively, to feel the space before his body.

Ah, he had been right.

The surface was smooth, and as he gradually gained awareness of the nerves in his body he felt that he was at an angle. Not quite lying down, if the way his hair was falling was any indication, but not upright either.

It felt almost like glass, the surface before him, and it was cool to the touch. If he focused his eyes he could make out a faint glow from beyond the panel, and as he traced his fingers from one side to the other, he felt that it was curved. Some kind of pod, perhaps? Curious.

He tested his hands and feet for movement, and found that he was not strapped down, though the minute he tried to move his head he felt a tug from somewhere behind his neck. It almost felt like a helmet of some sort, not that he could reach up and check - there really wasn’t that much room to move, and the little exploration he had done had been without bending his joints too much.

In honesty, Saihara felt as though he had just woken up from a long rest. Almost like coming out of Miu’s Virtual World, though that was some time ago now, it was a sensation uniquely familiar to him, and he was sure he was not mistaken. Before he could puzzle over that one, he heard a noise from somewhere on the other side of the glass. Voices, it sounded like. One pitched and almost jovial, and the other cool, collected. The voice of someone he knew, or so he felt.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he recognised both voices, but so muffled were they from the barrier between him and them, that he couldn’t hope to identify them from that alone. Who was he supposed to remember? It seemed like a bad dream, almost, the things he had been through.

They had beaten the mastermind and escaped. K1-B0 had...given his life for that purpose. Many of their friends were dead, some were innocent lives cut short by the desperation of another person. Saihara found as he thought on this though that he didn’t fault those people. He supposed if he had been like them, and he had had a source of such desperation to look towards, he might have done the same.

He tried to shake his head to clear those thoughts, but that same tug halted his movement. There was a clatter from inside his closed space, and the voices outside grew louder for a moment, before dying down.

Just as he was about to try and decipher that, though, there was a tap on the glass in front of him, and it startled him enough that his train of thought was very quickly removed from its course.

“Yahoo, Saihara! Are you in there?”

That sounded like...but he was dead, wasn’t he? Killed of his own accord, so how could he be talking like that, sounding as though nothing had changed.  _ As though nothing had happened… _

It was that particular thought that gave Saihara the motivation to shift his arms so that his palms were pressed flat against the inside surface of the glass, and push upwards and out with all his might.

Surprisingly, the cover gave with remarkably little resistance, and he had to shut his eyes against the strength of the light that flooded his vision as he did. He heard that familiar teasing giggle come from somewhere above him, and cautiously, he opened his eyes. Ouma was leaning over him, a bright grin on that familiar face, and Saihara’s thoughts fumbled to keep up with this. Ouma had died, hadn’t he? They’d all seen his blood, had seen Kaito come out of the Exisal. They’d seen...so much blood. 

So how was he here now?

“Nishishi, gee Saihara don’t look so surprised to see me! It’ll take a sec for the memories to come back, but none of us are dead, dummy!”

“N-none of us?”

“Wo~ow, you really must be out of it if you can’t make sense of that,” Ouma leaned back, allowing Saihara a view of the room behind him, and gestured to the opposite row of pods, “Look, see? We all went in these things, our brains got scrambled, and we went into the killing game. The mastermind told you all that, didn’t she? We chose this. But none of us are dead, y’know! That’d be super crazy, even for Team DanganRonpa!”

That name again. Team DanganRonpa.

Saihara wasn’t sure what to say to Ouma’s explanation. It made sense, to some degree, and it explained a few things about the legitimacies of having a killing game in the real world; things he had been wondering about during the trial they were revealed in. 

It was a lot to take in, even after everything it seemed the world still had curveballs to throw at him. Still, he was beyond happy. If it was all a simulation, then everyone was alright. Kaito, Tenko...Kaede. Kaede was alright; and as though sensing this thought crossing his mind, the girl in question appeared in his peripheral, waving shyly as she approached.

His heart leapt into his throat, and he choked on air, feeling his eyes well up with tears. She was here. She was here, and she was  _ okay _ . He lamely raised his arms, the movement slow, and sluggish, as though he was using them for a the first time in an age. Which, he supposed, was partly true. But that was a thought for later, for now all he could was look expectantly at Kaede, longing and grief and fear and so much hope blooming somewhere deep within his chest at the sight of her smile.

“Kaede…!” His voice came out in a strangled sob, and for a moment he didn’t process that he was crying. And then Kaede was holding him in her arms, and he felt how warm she was. How warm and real and so very, very alive. He felt a dampness on his cheek, where hers was pressed against his, and he realised she was crying too.

“Saihara you-...you did it! You did wonderfully, you really beat that game! You believed in the truth until the end and...you did so well, Saihara. I’m so proud! I knew you’d be a wonderful detective, and you even got rid of that hat!” She chuckled  at the end of her small speech, and with her every word the ache in Saihara’s chest grew. She was proud of him, he’d made her proud. He’d done it...she was happy with who he had become. He’d carried out her wish until the end, and she was happy he had done so. Saihara didn’t think he could cry any harder, honestly, but he buried his face in the comforting warmth of her shoulder. She was wearing a uniform he wasn’t familiar with - they all were - but that feeling was so completely, irreplaceably  _ Kaede _ .

When they had found comfort in each other’s arms for some time, they pulled back, and Kaede held him by the shoulders and smiled down at him. She bent forwards, and Shuichi tipped his head down. She placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, like a sister to her brother, and he felt for the first time since he’d known her, since this whole thing started, that he was truly peaceful. He smiled up at her from his position still seated in the pod, and in turn she gave him a bright grin -  _ to rival the sun _ , he thought.

A flicker of green from somewhere over her shoulder distracted him for a moment, and he hesitated to look for it; there was someone he hadn’t been daring hope he would see again. Panicked, he looked back to Kaede for guidance, and though she hadn’t turned around, he knew from the look in her eyes that she knew who he had caught sight of. She gave him a reassuring smile, and he bit his lip.

He looked up regardless though, steeling his nerves and searching out the boy he’d never once forgotten, throughout everything. Some things, in the Academy, had reminded Saihara of him. The warmth of a new day, the sound of people waking up in the morning, and the smell of Tojo’s cooking. Small things, but things he treasured. Through these thoughts, his eyes met spring green, and he felt himself tearing up again.

The other boy said nothing, but his mouth curved up into a smile. A sorrowful smile, full of longing, full of love, full of everything they couldn’t say in the game, but could say now. Kaede moved out of the way, knowing what was to come, and Saihara felt more than saw Ouma’s amused look being sent his way again, but he didn’t care for either of those things.

He hauled himself out of the pod, forcing his muscles to remember how to operate themselves, and scrambled to stand on his own. Kaede helped straighten him as his feet found their balance again, and when he could stand on his own he sent a grateful smile her way, before turning back to look at Rantaro. How hard was walking? One foot after another. Rantaro hadn’t moved toward him, but he had turned to fully face him, and by this point almost all eyes were on them. Saihara, for once, didn’t think twice about that. He no longer cared people were watching him make a fool of himself as he once would have - the killing game really had changed him, he realised.

At first, he tried to move slowly, but soon grew tired of that, and willed everything in his body to cooperate just this once, and he stumbled into a run towards Rantaro. In a choked whisper Rantaro's name pushed past his lips, and he saw his own name being mouthed in return. That was all it took for him to start crying again.

That handsome smile had turned amused, and then fond, and he opened his arms for Saihara to fall into. It took him a half minute to cross the distance, and he near tripped at least twice, but if he had thought Kaede’s embrace felt comfortable, nothing compared to being in his arms again.

Rantaro laughed as Saihara reached him, a delightful chuckle that light Saihara up from the inside with its warmth, and Saihara lost the energy for running when he knew Rantaro was close enough to catch him. He collapsed into Rantaro arms, and in an instant there was a familiar grip around his waist. That same laugh sounded again, this time somewhere close to his ear, low and private and just for him, and Saihara couldn’t help the delighted smile that settled over his mouth at just the sound of it.

His breath caught in his throat at the sensation of being lifted into the air, and spun, and he wrapped his arms around Rantaro’s shoulders and laughed with him as they twirled. It was beautiful, in every way. Later, when asked about how it felt to be reunited with Rantaro, Saihara would find he could only describe the feeling as coming home after a long time away.

When he was returned to the ground, and when Rantaro pulled back to look him in the eye, Saihara was breathless; his hair was tousled and messy, and he knew he must be flushed from the thrill of it all. Rantaro wasn’t faring much better, his hair mussed and his face red. He leaned in to press his forehead to Saihara’s, and they, for a while, simply stared at each other, not quite ready to believe this was really happening. They broke the silence at the same time, a mutual exhalation of everything they had bottled up until this moment. The words they could not say during the game, but could say in freedom now.

Those words came in a twinned sigh, as though neither of them had meant to say them, but had nothing else to say, except,

 

“I love you.”


End file.
